By Chris Williams: It’s hard not to look at the performance that American heavyweight challenger Eddie Chambers (35-2, 18 KO’s) put in against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KO’s) on Saturday night without seeing things that Chambers could have done to make himself more competitive against Wladimir. I’m not sure if Chambers could have won the fight no matter what he did, but he at least might have had a better chance at being competitive had he made some small adjustments during the fight.

First of all, Chambers failed to really take the fight to Wladimir the way that he needed to if he wanted to have a chance at beating him. Most of the time, Chambers positioned himself on the outside, his hands up in front of his face to block incoming from Wladimir.

This was a good survival tool for Chambers, to be sure, but it wasn’t a strategy that would have made it possible for him to beat Wladimir. Standing on the outside against the tall 6’7” Klitschko was a recipe for defeat. That’s the worst thing that Chambers could have done. You don’t stand on the outside against Wladimir unless you plan on taking shots all night long and losing.

What Chambers needed to be doing was coming in low and fast and ripping combinations off once inside on Wladimir. I didn’t see much of that from Chambers last night. He would come forward trying to throw one, maybe two punches and end up missing and then back off. Instead of continuing forward to throw even more punches as he closed the distance, he retreated or let Wladimir grab him.

I think Chambers did a good job of preventing Wladimir from clinching by shoving him away or wrestling with him. But Chambers needed to be throwing punches while he was in close. There’s no law against staying busy when you’re at close range and your opponent is trying to grab you the way that Wladimir was going when Chambers came in close.

There was a real failure on Chambers’ part to throw any real punch when he was close to Wladimir. Instead of wrestling or shoving Wladimir away, Chambers needed to be throwing fast punches to the midsection and coming upstairs with uppercuts to the head of Wladimir if he wanted to have a chance at winning. Chambers fought like he didn’t know how to fight on the inside.

Later in the fight, Chambers looked for the most part like he’d given up on himself. By the 9th round, Chambers looked depressed, and was throwing very few punches by this point in the fight. In between rounds, his corner told him over and over again to start throwing more punches. Chambers looked better in the 10th, fighting with more energy, moving well to avoid Wladimir’s punches, but not throwing enough to do much more than making it hard for Wladimir.

It was a much better round for Chambers than any other round except for the 1st. Unfortunately Chambers looked scared in the 11th round when Wladimir started loading up on his shots trying for a knockout. This was Chambers’ perfect opportunity to try and catch Wladimir coming in with a big shot to the head and possibly take him out. What we saw instead was Chambers moving a lot from side to side with his hands in front of his face, looking like he was just trying to survive rather than trying to win the fight.